In this paper, I will be discussing how early learning - a focus of considerable social and political investment of late - is incorporated as an element in assemblages which are circulated to and unpacked by parents in different circumstances. The maternity sample bag, which is distributed to all new mothers in Australia, operates as a metaphor for the bundling of heterogeneous concrete and discursive materials into resources for parenting. The analysis is based on parent interviews, participant observation, inventories, artefacts, network tracing and mapping which was undertaken over three years in three regions (Nichols, Rowsell, Nixon & Rainbird 2012). This analysis utilises the concepts of the actor network and heterogenous engineering from Actor Network Theory (Latour 1987; Law 1992). I consider the discourses of early learning which are being mobilised by incorporation into packages produced by disparate entities including government, commercial and end user organisations. The affordances offered by different modes of packaging of these resources are also considered; on and offline versions of the 'same' resource or service are compared. The ways in which producers network into families' lifeworlds, and parents also create and mobilise networking connections to access early learning resources, are discussed. I pose and address the question: What kinds of discursive practices are enacted when parents unpack early learning resources and are they what their promoters have envisaged?
Latour, B.1987. The powers of association. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, Action and Belief: A new sociology of knowledge. London: Routledge.
Law, J. 1992. Notes on the theory of the actor network: Ordering, strategy and heterogeneity. Published by the Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster University, http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/papers/Law-Notes-on-ANT.pdf
Nichols, S., Rowsell, J., Nixon, H. & Rainbird, S. (2012) Resourcing Early Learners: New networks new players New York: Routledge.